Strike and Warrego’s shares soar as West Erregulla-2 well hits gas

A gas discovery in the Perth Basin has seen shares in juniors Strike Energy and Warrego Energy skyrocket.

Strike has told the market that interpretation of the West Erregulla-2 well it operates shows 41m of gas net pay in the Kingia sandstone formation with an average porosity of 14.3 per cent.

Strike managing director Stuart Nicholls said it was an exceptional outcome.

“The Kingia results at West Erregulla have exceeded Strike’s highest expectations and indicate a significant discovery that appears to have higher reservoir quality than the Waitsia gas field,” he said.

The Mitsui-operated Waitsia field west of Strike’s permit was Australia’s biggest onshore gas discovery in 40 years when it was announced by Mitsui’s predecessor AWE in 2014.

“With West Erregulla-2 now being one of the deepest wells ever drilled onshore Australia and finding such excellent quality sandstone reservoirs, the subsurface paradigms of the Perth Basin are shifting,” Mr Nicholls said.

“Strike believes it has unveiled a new conventional gas fairway, with these initial results validating our geological model.

“With gas discoveries in the Wagina and now the Kingia sandstones the West Erregulla campaign is company-changing for Strike.”

In May John Poynton-chaired Strike announced that Wesfarmers’ fertiliser arm CSBP would pay $5 million for the option to buy between 80 and 100 petajoules of Strike’s 50 per cent share of the gas from the West Erregulla field at up to 25 terajoules a day.